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Subject:Legibility of sans serif? From:geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA Date:Fri, 25 Jul 1997 15:17:35 -0500
Argh! Again the sans serif question raises its ugly head.
OK, once more unto the breach...
There is no one right answer to whether serif fonts are
more legible than sans serif. I find Helvetica Narrow
illegible, particularly when compared with Times Roman,
whereas Stone Sans is more readable than many serif fonts.
But there are well-nigh illegible serif fonts, and superbly
designed modern sans serif fonts with tapered stroke widths
that are quite easy to read. In short, the variation within
each category of typefaces is so great that making any
generalisations is meaningless.
Worse yet, there's a very strong "familiarity" factor. The
French and many Nordic countries love their sans serif, and
having talked to a few folks from those countries, they
don't find our (English) North American serifs any easier
to read; the Quebec French don't use them outside
newspapers, where the serif fonts tend to be more
economical of space. And I doubt the Chinese even notice
the difference in legibility after learning to handle their
amazingly complex fonts... they probably wonder what all
the fuss is about.
Bottom line: Ignore any blanket statement about superior
legibility, and test your own fonts in your specific
application, with your specific audience. You'll almost
never go drastically wrong with "boring" standards such as
Times Roman, but you can probably do a bit better than
"good enough" if you take some time to experiment.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)} geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Disclaimer: Speaking for myself, not FERIC.
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